"It will be a good thing for Ukip when the MEPs are gone" says its national chairman

Richard Billington, the chairman of Harborough Ukip, didn’t just email his own thoughts to a mailing list that included people outside his party.

He also attached notes of a meeting with Ukip’s national chairman Paul Oakden.

That meeting, according to a tweet from Dan Martin, the Leicester Mercury’s political correspondent, took place in Melton Mowbray on 5 March.

Dan has already tweeted a couple of gems from them and today more were published by Guido Fawkes.

Headed “These notes MUST NOT be put on social media,” they reveal that Oakden hates social media and believes all Ukip candidates should close their accounts: “It just causes more grief.”

And according to Dan Martin, Oakden said:

“It will be a good thing for Ukip when the MEPs are gone. They tend to see themselves as elevated and get in the way of basic Ukip members processes at branch level.”

Dan reminds us that Oakden used to work for Roger Helmer.

And Billington himself offers the observation:

“Many people said quietly to me that it is a good job we didn’t win as Stoke is a serious black hole of degradation.  Let the crazy and quite unpleasant Labour MP have the seat with its much reduced majority.”